google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Tuesday, February 8, 2022, Jeff Stillman

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Feb 8, 2022

Tuesday, February 8, 2022, Jeff Stillman

I Felt the Earth Move.


The letters in the circles spell out one of the 7 Continents, but the letters are not consecutive, but rather they have Drifted to give us a Continental Drift.

18-Across. Stringed instrument played by Jerry Garcia in the intro to CSNY's "Teach Your Children": PEDASTEEL GUITAR.  Asia.

29-Across. Have high aspirations, despite being warned not to: GET YOUR HOPES UP.  Europe.

49-Across. "Based on what they tell me ... ": AFAR AS I CAN SEE.  Africa

63-Across. Land movement spanning millennia ... or what each set of circles suggests: CONTINENTAL DRIFT.


Across:
1. Salon tool: COMB.


5. Bay of Naples isle: CAPRI.   Also mid-calf pants.



10. Underworld boss: SATAN.  Not the Mafia boss ...

15. Actor Sharif: OMAR.  Omar Sharif (né Michael Yusef Dimitri Chalhoub; Apr. 10, 1932 ~ July 10, 2015) was an Egyptian actor who was fluent in 5 languages: Arabic, English, Spanish, French and Italian.


16. Setting for some van Gogh works: ARLES.

17. Salad fruit: OLIVE.  Not in your typical fruit salad, although this recipe for a blood orange salad with olives looks interesting.

21. Says, "We're through!": ENDS IT.

22. Aspire laptop maker: ACER.  I learned about this computer from doing the crossword puzzles.  Then I noticed that it is the computer used by the receptionist at my doctor's office.

23. Jar top: LID.

24. Silky to the touch: SMOOTH.

26. Flip chart holders: EASELS.   //  6-Down. Class with easelsART.

33. Environmental prefix: ECO-.

34. __ kwon do: TAE.  A form of Korean martial art.

35. Say over and over: ITERATE.

38. Model Campbell: NAOMI.  Naomi Elaine Campbell (b. May 22, 1970) is a British model and actress.


41. Stumble: TRIP.





43. Protection: AEGIS.

44. Home of the NBA's Magic: ORLANDO.  Basketball.


46. Nintendo's Super __: NES.

48. CPR specialist: EMT.  The Emergency Medical Technicians make frequent appearances in the crossword puzzles.  I hope no one here needs one.

53. Water depth unit: FATHOM.  As a noun, Fathom is a unit of length equal to 6 feet.  As a verb, I can fathom that.

55. Newspaper space measurement: LINAGE.  Keep Linage in mind when writing your obituary.  Longer the obit, the more costly to your heirs.

56. Laudatory verse: ODE.  Anything can be the subject of an Ode.

57. Cries of discovery: OHOs!

59. Regal domains: REALMS.

67. Like a loud crowd: AROAR.


68. In unison: AS ONE.

69. Hebrides hillside: BRAE.  Today's Scottish lesson.

70. Author Carroll: LEWIS.  Lewis Carroll (né Charles Lutwidge Dodgson; Jan. 27, 1832 ~ Jan. 14, 1898) has a rather creepy interested in young children that probably wouldn't be tolerated today.

71. Warning opening: DO NOT!

72. Rural agreement: YES'M.

Down:
1. Deal with it: COPE.

2. Gathering clouds, maybe: OMEN.  It was a dark and stormy night ...


3. Anti-DUI acronym: MADD.  As in Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

4. Like trumpet music: BRASSY.

5. Remove, as a demon: CAST OUT.

7. Synthetic sofa portmanteau: PLEATHER.  Pleather is faux leather made from Polyurethane, hence the "P" in its name.

8. Bounce back again: RE-ECHO.

9. Archipelago part: ISLE.  Another little dupe.  See 5-Across.


10. Trifling amount: SOU.

11. Boxing legend: ALI.  Mohammad Ali (né Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; Jan. 17, 1942 ~ June 3, 2016).

12. Book names are on them: TITLE PAGES.


13. Benefit: AVAIL.

14. Comic-Con attendees: NERDS.  Comic-Con is a comic book convention.  If you are interested, here is a list of some up-coming dates.

19. Fancy airport ride: LIMO.

20. Say hi to: GREET.

25. Soapbox speaker: ORATOR.  Why a soapbox?


27. Between ports: ASEA.  The dreaded "A" word.

28. "You bet!": SURE.

29. UConn women's basketball coach __ Auriemma: GENO.  Geno Auriemma (né Luigi Auriemma; b. Mar. 23, 1954) isn't your usual Tuesday guest celebrity.  He was born in Montella, Italy, and came to the United States when he was 7 years old.  He has been at the University of Connecticut since 1985.


30. Plug-in vehicle, briefly: E-CAR.

31. "You missed your chance": TOO LATE NOW.

32. Supply, as Muzak: PIPE IN.

36. It's up at the end of the test: TIME.


37. Sunrise dirección: ESTE.  Today's Spanish lesson.  Hi, Lucina!

39. Sitcom set in Korea: M*A*S*H.


40. Scoop: INFO.

42. Be emphatic about: INSIST ON.

45. Private Ryan portrayer Matt: DAMON.  Saving Private Ryan was a 1998 film that starred Tom Hanks who was tasked {Spoiler Alert!} with going behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan who's three brothers had been killed in combat.

47. Hester Prynne's letter color: SCARLET.


50. "The Tempest" king: ALONSO.  From the play by Willie the Shakes.

51. Like much brandy: AGED.


52. Close at hand: NEAR BY.

53. Kind of point: FOCAL.

54. Be gaga over: ADORE.  The link between Lady Gaga and Queen.


58. Noggin: HEAD.

60. Old Pisa dough: LIRE.  Pre-Euro.


61. Advanced lit. degrees: MFAs.  As in Master of Fine Arts.

62. Academic acronym: STEM.  As in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

64. __ chi: TAI.

65. E-file agcy.: IRS.  As in the dreaded Internal Revenue Service.

66. 2022, por ejemplo: AÑO.  More of today's Spanish lesson.

חתולה



47 comments:

  1. Got ‘er done, but don’t know the time due to many interruptions. Saw the gimmick immediately with ASIA, which helped. No W/Os. Thanx, JS, for an entertaining Tuesday level CW. And thanx Hahtoolah for an equally entertaining write-up. I made a big pot of pea soup yesterday with the ham bone and some sliced ham from the freezer, left from Thanksgiving. It turned out deeee-licious, perhaps my best batch ever. My GF agreed!

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  2. FIWrong, by one cell as a (IMHO) trivial error. LIRa + YaSM.
    The theme was easy thanks to the bubbles, and even helped me complete one of the themer entries.
    OLIVE is a fruit? And used in some sort of salad?

    OMAR liked his CAPRI pants.
    They made it easier to dance:
    Cossack kicks
    With moves so slick,
    The other dancers had no chance!

    Did OLIVE Oyl use olive oil
    When other oils proved no AVAIL?
    When cod liver
    Did not deliver,
    Nor did a can o' canola oil!

    {B+, A-.}

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  3. Good morning!

    Jeff provided a SMOOTH slope this morning. No Wite-Out required. Even d-o noticed the TAI chi/TAE kwon do pairing. Forgot to look at the circles, but figured what was in them when CONTINENTAL DRIFT appeared. Nicely done Jeff and Hahtoolah. (I liked the Yodelsphere.)

    OMAR : Sharif was also a bridge maven.

    PANDORA : Anyone else wonder whether the cat was alive or dead?

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  4. FIR, but erased vsop for AGED, and tai kwon do for TAE. Wanted come kind of contraction of "column inch" for LINAGE, and DNK GENO or ALONSO. I knew about Daimler's MB-Tex synthetic leather, but hadn't heard of PLEATHER (which spellchecker hates).

    I mentioned before that I was called down by the administration at our local community college for asking for a flip chart. Offensive to some Asian students, I was told. And that was pre-cancel culture, maybe 10 years ago.

    You probably knew FATHOM. But do you know "shot"? It's 15 fathoms, or 90 feet. Shorthand used especially during anchoring - "gimme 3 shots" is easier to hear than "gimme 180 feet".

    I was again amused by the differences Cornerites have in perceived difficulty of these puzzles. I found this one to be pretty tough, like almost Thursday hard.

    I used to fly into PHX on late flights. More than half the time I was able to get a stretch LIMO to take me home for cab fare. Big competition there, with slim chance of catching another fare that late.

    Thanks to Jeff for the fun puzzle. And thanks to Hahtoolah for another visual treat.

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  5. Good Morning, Crossword friends. Another chilly day, but at least the days are getting longer.

    Too funny, D-O!

    QOD: There is no wealth but life. ~ John Ruskin (Feb. 8, 1819 ~ Jan. 20, 1900), British writer, art critic and philanthropist.

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  6. At first, I shifted when I should've drifted, but "aged" & "nearby" rescued me. Finished in 5:30.

    Weird seeing easels in the clue for 6-down ("art"), and then be an answer for 26-across ("flip chart holders"). I resisted Aegis, but only because it's Tuesday.

    Oh joy, circles.

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  7. Yes Owen, olives grow on trees so they must be fruit, even if they're not sweet. Always see olives, especially black ones, in antipasto, which I've usually seen with lettuce and onions, so I consider that a salad.

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  8. Like OwenKL, I goofed on the SE corner, but my questioned fill was STEt and YESt. Should have done an alphabet run as I wasn't sure of the T. (YESt was past tense of YES?) Wishful thinking. I thought it was challenging too for a Tuesday, Jinx, and not because I had a FIW.

    I saw the circled continents and almost guessed the reveal. I expected CONTINENTAL Divide but it was too long. Fun theme, Jeff. Thanks. Thanks, Hahtoolah, for your usual fun and edifying review as well. I didn't have many WOs but tried three isles before perps insisted on CAPRI. OHOS abounded as I finished the fills.

    Still puzzling over your Pandora comment, DO. Cat? Schrödinger's? Or a reference to our cat loving reviewer? (Love the final cartoon, Hahtoolah!) Hope everyone's day goes SMOOTHly!

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  9. Good morning. Thank you, Jeff and Hahtoolah

    Hahtoolah, we were listening to the same album ! A perfect choice to capture the reveal and for your title song today !

    When I filled TOO LATE NOW, I thought of this song. Sis played that album so often I knew the words to every song.

    As for the hidden theme answers:
    ASIA - Only Time Will Tell
    EUROPE - The Final Countdown
    AFRICA. - Toto

    Not plate tectonics, but CONTINENTAL DRIFT.
    Not the hyde of the Nauga, but PLEATHER. Almost the same diff.
    Not exorcise, but CAST OUT.
    AS FAR AS I'm AwarE before I CAN SEE.

    Hondo is a fan of GENO and his Huskies, but he's partial to Collies.

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  10. Good Morning:

    The theme was obvious from the get-go, thanks to the circles but the reveal was a surprise Aha. I read a novel many years ago by Russell Banks entitled Continental Drift. (The minute I saw the circles I knew Speedy Solver wasn’t going to be happy!) I agree with Jinx that this puzzle had more crunch than a normal Tuesday, e.g., Aegis, Alonso, and Geno, are not Tuesday-level C/As, IMO. I’m not complaining but I think a newbie might be stymied here and there. I didn’t care for Reecho but I liked Eco/Echo/E Car and Tai/Tae. Satan was a surprise as I was thinking Mafia boss.

    Thanks, Jeff, for a smooth and satisfying solve and thanks, Hahtoolah, for your guidance and graphics. Who knew that Van Gogh painted cats? My laptop is an Acer as is Lucina’s, I believe. I rarely use it as I’m Velcroed to my iPad.

    FLN

    Jayce, that meal sounds like a fun adventure, although I’d be a little leery of some of the offerings.

    Garlic Gal, I don’t have HBO so I haven’t seen any of The Gilded Age but, as I mentioned recently, several scenes were filmed in my hometown of Troy, NY. I’m hoping that it’ll be available later on one of the streaming services. Christine Baranski was on CBS Sunday Morning a week ago and I found her delightful. I always enjoyed her character in The Good Wife. I haven’t seen Vienna Blood; I want more light-hearted fare like ACGAS. I see enough darkness in real life, unfortunately.

    Have a great day.

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  11. ALTGranny: I think D-O was referring to Schrödinger's cat. His dead/alive cat makes appearances in the comments on quite a few occasions.

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  12. Tuesday level for me. I had ASI- in the circles at 18A, and CONTI..... at 63A giving me continental drift and all the perps I needed. GENO was all perps. I was surprised the women's coach was male. LIRA/LIRE.
    Olives - "They belong to a group of fruit called drupes, or stone fruits, and are related to mangoes, cherries, peaches, almonds, and pistachios."
    I have olives every day in my green side salad.
    The old series, like MASH, wear well. Still entertaining. The newer series, not so much.
    Arles was on my bucket list, but as a Monet fan.
    Hester Prynne received far more condemnation than her lover.

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  13. Today we have the CONTINTAL DRIFT theory proposed over 100 years ago by German meteorologist Alfred Wegener as out theme. With the circles those land masses were easy to spot. Wegener thought the continents 'floated' on the ocean and moved around. It's now known as plate tectonics where various 'plates' move and crash into each other building mountains, volcanoes, and island archipelagoes in the process.

    TAI & TAE- chi & kwan do
    NERDS- I never heard that word growing up. Jocks would call the unathletic guys DORKS. I wish I was as smart as some of those who were looked down on.

    "55. Newspaper space measurement: LINAGE. Keep Linage in mind when writing your obituary. Longer the obit, the more costly to your heirs." Our local paper doesn't charge per line and some of the obits are longer that college essays. But since only 'old people' take the newspaper the only advertisers are CHIROPRACTORS, ORTHOPEDICS, and HEARING AID suppliers.

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  14. Psychoanalysts* were referred to as "Alienists" in the day and that revisionist claptrap about LEWIS is clear evidence

    I was trying to think of exorcize for CAST OUT

    Oops, spelt TAE with an i and never took a good look at pleathEr(unk). And there's another one: direccion* not direction so ESTE not east. I need to go back to my ink pen and better reading glasses

    Nice l'icks today Owen but I'll swap the grades especially if last line of #1 is [That] others...

    Jinx I remember the "flip" chart claptrap. No wonder "ALICE!" is uttered in frustration at putts stopping short.

    Hahtoolah another great write-up. I'd say it was easy Tuesday except when it wasn't (said the Caterpillar)

    WC

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  15. I suppose this delightful poem by Wordsworth would be subject to the same revisionist claptrap
    ("We are Seven")

    WC

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  16. Here are some points where I almost went wrong: "tae" vs "tai", "Geno" vs "Gena" and "Lire" vs "Lira". But through logic and P & P they eventually became clear. I didn't grasp the theme until the reveal. "D'oh!" Finally, I thought "Oberon" was the king in "The Tempest" but it turned out to be "Alonso." FIR, in the end, so I'm happy.

    By the way, IM, I thought of "Underworld boss" as a mafia head too, until the perps made it clear that It was a "boss" of a different order altogether.

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  17. Nice Tuesday puzzle Jeff S, always amazing to me the vast array of themes that constructors conjure up. Looking back, the reveal certainly made sense of the circles or vice versa, I usually ignore the circles, just trying to solve by the clues unless I’m stumped and figure it will help in some way.

    Took me 15 minutes for a FIR today, unknown being PLEATHER, which I didn’t see as being pronounced like leather till reading the expo, I was giving it the long “E” sound which didn’t make sense either. And I had a brain lapse on TOO LATE NOW /LEWIS, the W being my last fill.

    Hahtoolah ~~ as always, a very entertaining and delightful write-up featuring so many apropos illustrations! Learning moment of the day - that Jerry Garcia played the PEDAL STEEL GUITAR on the intro to Teach Your Children, but I can now hear it just thinking of the song.

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  18. Couldn't FATHOM not completing a Tuesday level puzzle but there were some doubtful moments..the Mid West tripped me up for a while and was last to go. 🤨

    Clever theme helped push things along Inkover: tai/TAE

    "Matt was "removed" from the movie set when the director CAST OUT Damon." 😆

    Say over and over and then reITERATE? AROAR & ASONE old CW favs. Didn't know steel guitars had pedals. That Van Gogh painting looks like the inspiration for set of "CATS". Liked the Pandora cartoon. The smiling lady on the 1000 lire Bill is Maria Montessori. When I was at University 1000 Lire (uno G) was worth around $1.50. (71-77)
    To get rid of all those zeroes I suggested changing 1000 lire to 1 New Lira.. I was told DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP by university buds. With the conversion to the EURO...TOO LATE NOW

    Hope I still remember what the perped AEGIS means tomorrow. Some of these Comic Con so-called NERDS have very valuable comic book collections. 📚

    Start fishing....CASTOUT.
    Not worth it to sue for a ___ SOU.
    Bridal headgear...AVAIL

    IM didn't know scenes from "The Gilded Age" were filmed in Troy. BTW Christine Baranski is from Buffalo. So far just the costumes and palatial homes make it worth watching.

    Speaking of Upstate hometowns (we are?)

    1.down..COPE

    Our Saint Marianne Cope

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  19. H2HL re Lineage obit costs

    Our Newspapaer is famous for long overblown obituaries. When my mother died suddenly in 1999 my distraught dad was being interviewed for the obit. I asked the funeral director to fax it to me before it was sent in. I cut it down to less than half. A lot of exaggeration and overblowing simple facts. Mom would have been mortified.

    Dad told me later that the total cost of the funeral (which included the obit) was less than he expected. It was the original long obituary that would have jacked up the cost.

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  20. Musings
    -I have heard YAS’M spoken even though YES’M seemed more logical and so I’ll take one bad cell at LIRA/LIRE
    -I taught Alfred Wegner’s CONTINENTAL DRIFT theory, which was controversial at first, for years
    -Husker FB had a very nice recruiting season, but I’d tell fans to not GET YOUR HOPES UP
    -A tour guide at an OLIVE orchard told us that pickers eat the raw fruit only once! Bitter!!
    -Prime example of redundancy: “I’d like to reiterate again”
    -The digital age is causing newspapers to lose a lot of revenue for OBITS
    -We had a BRASSY 16-yr-old waitress Saturday night. What a hoot!
    -“Your E-CAR needs a charge? Well, we’re in the middle of the Nebraska Sandhills, so IT’S TOO LATE NOW.”
    -You want to wow a JH science class? Put something flammable at the FOCAL POINT of an 18” parabolic mirror in full sunlight!
    -Enjoyable summary, Susan!

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  21. Ray-O ~~ coincidentally I was going through a cluttered old closet yesterday and came across my mom’s obituary from 2007, I had to smile at the line that said “she enjoyed golf, bowling, and was a long-suffering Detroit Lions fan”. 😂

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  22. Hola!

    CONTINENTAL DRIFT and the names of the continents is an absolute delight for this former fourth grade teacher! It's exactly in my wheelhouse of teaching content. In the old days, teaching that theory was difficult and required lots of imagination. But later with the advent of unique teaching aids, it came alive.

    The puzzle also came alive quickly especially once I saw the CONTINENTS embedded in the circles. Good job, Jeff Stillman!

    Irish Miss
    You must have a memory like a STEEL trap to remember that I have an ACER computer.

    CAPRI/ISLES crossing is amusing.

    I loved OMAR Sharif! What a handsome man he was and a good actor, too.

    Have a terrific Tuesday, everyone!

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  23. Re. Geno As Women's Coach. We're finally seeing women as men's coaches(Yankee Class A) and NBA and Golf analysts. Note the 2 $mil salary.

    Enjoyed reading about St Marianne Cope

    Paper versions have not COPEd with times. The reading/paying audience is indeed seniors but fe. TBTimes ESCHEWS* Golf reporting

    Yooper, I've come to refer to the habitual firing of coaches every three years as "Detroit Lions disease". Or as PP&M would say "When will they ever learn"

    WC

    * Maybe not today but we just had this word (Sunday?)

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  24. Tuesday toughie, but still lots of fun--many thanks, Jeff. And as soon as I saw all those pictures, I knew it was a delightful Hahtoolah commentary--many thanks for that too.

    Happy to see lots of ART in this puzzle: with EASELS but also poetic ODES, and Van Gogh works, and Hester Prynne's SCARLET letter, and even the "Tempest" king. A total treat for us art lovers.

    And, hey, we aren't NERDS.

    Irish Miss, I too kept thinking MAFIA before SATAN filled in.

    Have a great day, everybody.

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  25. Thanks Jeff for a bit of a Tuesday challenge. I'm with Jinx that this puzzle struck me as a little Thursdayish. Did FIR though, with the help of a good theme and lots of good perps.

    Thanks Hahtoolah for all the fun and a very informative review.

    A few favs:

    16A ARLES. For all you van Gogh junkies, one of my sisters tipped me off to an "Immersive Van Gogh Digital Art Show" making the rounds of over 40 U.S. cities this year.

    17A OLIVE. Olives may not be used in fruit salads, but they are fruits that we regularly add to our daily vegetable salad.

    55A LINAGE. My Mother left money to pay for all of her funeral expenses, including an obit in the same paper that I got the today's puzzle from. IIRC it cost about $600 to list my Father, her parents, and all her siblings, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren.

    70A LEWIS. Very interesting link Susan. My takeaway was that cancel culture predates the 21st Century.

    7F PLEATHER. Never heard of this, but I often wonder how many Naughas had to die to make our sofa?

    Ray - O @10:26 AM Thank you for the interesting link on Saint Marianne Cope. I had not heard of her before. Today is the Feast day of Saint Josephine Bakhita (1869 - 1947), a Sudanese slave. It's also Teri and my 53rd Anniversary.

    Cheers,
    Bill

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  26. Word of the Day: undulate

    Pronunciation: ên-ju-layt

    Part of Speech: Verb

    Meaning: 1. To billow, to move gently up and down in a wavy pattern. 2. To have a smoothly rising and falling outline or form.

    Notes: Notice that the [d] "palatalizes" before [yu]; the tongue moves from the gum behind the teeth to the palate. Mmmmm [t] becomes [ch] in the same position, e.g. picture. It comes with two adjectives: the verb itself pronounced differently [ên-jê-lêt], meaning "wavy", as 'an undulate leaf' and undulatory. The noun is the expectable undulation.

    In Play: Water isn't the only thing that can undulate: "The wheat field undulated in the light breeze blowing over it". Even people can undulate: "As the music became more slithery, Anna Conda's body undulated in perfect rhythm with its beat."

    See Alpha Dictionary for more info.

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  27. waseeley ~~ I’ve most often heard the term undulate in reference to greens on a golf course, which certainly fits the definition. Undulating greens can be treacherous as it may cause your putt to twist and turn in several different directions or up and down, increasing or decreasing the speed, altering the path to the hole, can be very hard to read at times. They are the bane of my golf game.

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  28. Puzzling thoughts:

    FIR

    W/o in the SE corner as my CONTINENTS “shift” was incorrect

    Too bad that Jeff Stillman couldn’t figure out how to change OMAR to OVER in 15-across. The COMB OVER combo would’ve been fun!

    ASIA and EUROPE
    Thought AFRICA was too hot,
    If you catch my DRIFT

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  29. Happy Anniversary, Bill and Teri !

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  30. Happy anniversary, Bill and Teri! I hope you are planning a festive celebration.

    Susan, I forgot to thank you for an informative commentary with amusing links.

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  31. Forgive my regional a-suss-ment,
    but IMHO,
    "Cry of discovery" is "Aha."
    Oho, is a cry of revelation...
    Oreo, is just fill...

    and if you asked my opinion on continental drift...

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  32. Got the CONTINENTAL DRIFT answer immediately which allowed immediately filling in the circles. A bit of a struggle in the NE and SE corners and GENO was all perps and WAGs. He must be quite a good coach to last that long.

    I have been to KOREA, but we recently were close to the real MASH site here!

    Malibu Creek State Park. I would like to return another time for the actual view. Apparently a series of fires has destroyed almost everything. Has anyone been there?

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  33. Waz, Happy Anniversary.

    Today is DW's birthday. I found a pair if starfish shaped sea glass earrings at an island shop here which Catherine and I gifted her.

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  34. Terrific Tuesday. Thanks for the fun, Jeff and Hahtoolah.
    I filled this CW in good time, saw the CONTINENTs and got the theme. I thought I FIRed, but arrived here to discover that Aha should have been OHO (CED, I agree with you), and I did not notice my misspellings of DAMON and ALONSO.

    I TSKED at Sunday’s dupe, but we had two today (ISLE and EASEL). Really!
    Hand up for noting TAE and TAI, CAPRI (we had the pants yesterday) crossing ISLE, ECO crossing ECAR.
    Exorcise was too long; CAST OUT fit. And we had SATAN as boss of those demons (although I wanted Capo at first).

    Canadians can e-file to Revenue Canada. Our receipts are arriving now and due date is usually April 30, but since that is a Saturday this year, we get an extension to May 2.

    I inverted “salad fruit” and was thinking of a fruit salad, and when OLIVE filled, I went Yuk. But I love black OLIVEs in a Greek salad with Romaine lettuce, cucumber , tomatoes and feta cheese.

    Happy Anniversary to waseeley and Teri.

    Wishing you all a great day.

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  35. Ray-o- Happy Birthday to your DW. Lovely Idea for present.

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  36. Waseeley: Happy Anniversary to you and your bride. If you transpose the letters, you get the number of years I have been married.

    We have tickets to the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit for April. I am really looking forward to seeing that exhibit.

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  37. WC, thank you for linking GENO AURIEMMA's wiki page. As aUniversity of Connecticut graduate who attended before Geno came, I am very grateful to him because UConn and success at sports were not synonymous. They had a nice basketball program regionally but that was all. We students would have been excited by conference championships, never dreaming of his 11 National titles to go along with the 4 by the Men's basketball team all of which started in the 80s adding 5 field hockey championships and 2 men's soccer titles. Adding my Law School's 42 titles, this year adding its first ever Tennis title, I have much to cheer about. I realize it may not compete with some of the big schools, but I have enjoyed the post 1980 ride.

    HBD to Ms. Ray-O and HA to Bill and Terrie, 53 years takes work.

    Susan, why did you chide ASEA and not mention one of my least favorites AROAR ?

    With all the teachers we have here I was surprised I did not see any mention of the picture on the old Italian currency of MARIA MONTESSORI .

    Thank you Jeff andHahtoolah

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  38. Lemonade, Ray-O mentioned Maria Montessori at 10:26. (Happy birthday, Mrs. Ray-O.)

    Congrats to Waseeley and his editor, Terrie on their anniversary. (Longitude?)

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  39. Happy Anniversary to Bill and Teri.

    Happy Birthday to Mrs. Ray O.

    Lucina, sometimes the steel trap is more like a steel sieve. I will say, though, that my younger self’s memory, not studying, got me through many an exam.

    Just finished E-Filing my tax returns. Uncle Sam owes me a refund but from what I hear and read about the processing backlog, I won’t hold my breath waiting for it.

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  40. I liked this puzzle except for REECHO (which I parsed as "reach-o") and E-CAR. Took all four perps to get GENO. Matt DAMON forced AHA to become OHO, which then revealed ALONSO.

    The term "e-car" (which I hate) refers to fully electric cars such as the Tesla, not to plug-ins, which are hybrids. I therefore object to the clue.

    Scratched my head at easel/EASEL and isle/ISLE.

    Loved your write-up, Hahtoolah.

    Happy anniversary, waseeley and Teri.

    Good wishes to you all.

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  41. Wilbur, thanks for the improvement! I've now made that change from "the" in my save file!
    I liked that We Are Seven. When I'm asked how many grandchildren I have, I'm torn between 7 or 8, as one died in infancy.

    I used to be big in science fiction fandom, and we had a word for uber-fans, like many Comic-Con attendees: FAANS. I so wanted that jargon term before NERDS!

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    Replies
    1. OwenKL @4:39 PM Long shot - since you are into sci-fi, comics, etc, did you perchance ever meet a gentleman named Joe Mathew (RIP) at a convention? I met him in college (U of Md). A remarkable guy with a penchant for languages, who worked as a researcher at the Library of Congress for many years, and wrote sci-fi in his spare time. If you ever met him, you would remember him.

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  42. I don’t know how you can have isle and easel as both a clue and an answer. Very lazy editing IMHO.

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  43. Truth in Cartooning:
    The illustration chosen by Hahtoolah for AGED is right on the money. From the pinnacle of my years, I can attest to it.

    A fine Stillman PZL today. Unfortunately, it uses an asymmetrical grid, and so lacks diagonals to anagram.
    It's a shame because it includes such an otherwise clever theme.
    ~ OMK

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  44. Apparently I am now going to make at least 1 egregious obvious error in each comment; sorry Ray-O.

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  45. Finally the sunshine is returning to my life. For a while so many mishaps were coming at me I thought I had been cursed.

    I think you all know that last month I accidentally bumped into another car as I was turning to park my car. While my vehicle was being repaired I had a rental from Enterprise and after returning it I was informed of a dent which had not been cited when I returned it. Initially I was told I would be liable for the cost but today I received notice that it was forgiven. In my opinion I believe the dent was caused after I turned it in and someone there knew it. Anyway, all's well that end's well.

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  46. FIW. Absolutely couldn’t figure out PLEATHER/ARLES. I have never heard of the former. As for the Van Gogh clue, I’m kicking myself. There was a VG exhibit here in Houston a few years ago. I had a bum knee or ankle at the time, so I didn’t feel like spending time doing much reading. I just looked at the art, and I had never known ARLES. I was also angry, because “Starry Night” hadn’t made the trip. Anyway, there is another VG exhibit here through the end of March, and I’m hoping to get to that one.

    Messed up AEGIS/EMT/ESTE (stupid mistakes), and had the same problem with LIRE/YESM that Owen mentioned.

    Anyway, thanks Jeff for embarrassing me on a Tuesday, and thanks Susan for your always excellent review.

    Actually, CONTINENTALDRIFT was my first fill, and the other three theme answers fell rather quickly, and I saw the drifting continents.

    When I make a salad, it ALWAYS has black olives in it. Pick ‘em out yourself, if you don’t like ‘em!

    I still have an old 10.1” ACER Aspire One that I have probably had for 20 years. A friend sold it to me new at cost ($200), and I still use it at the museum to record the minutes at the volunteer meetings. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a volunteer meeting since Covid began.

    Happy anniversary, Teri and Bill! HBD, Mrs. Ray – O!

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